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Rendez-vous en Extrême-Orient (Aredit comic)
Rendez-vous en Extrême-Orient (Rendezvous in the Far East) is a Gimlet short story which appeared in the 150th issue of the comic small format album Commando, published by Aredit. The story appeared in May 1968. This comic strip story is the only one to appear in Commando. Other Gimlet stories had already been adapted and published by Aredit in the King small format comics series since 1967. While these were all drawn by Roger Melliès, the one in Commando was drawn by someone else, probably Brantome. Synopsis Rendez-vous is a fairly faithful adaptation of An Oriental Assignment, the first short story in Comrades in Arms. The comic strip occupies the first 47 pages of the album. There is a second story, Jean Bart contre les armes nouvelles, which is not an adaptation of a work by W. E. Johns. Plot (click on expand to read) The adaptation is fairly faithful to the original. The actual dialogue is often replicated in the speech bubbles. "Kinday" briefs his team and they depart for Calcutta. From there, Biggles "J. B. Worth" flies them in a flying boat to the target area. The aircraft is type is not stated, and as drawn, it looks nothing like a Catalina. They do set up a dump for supplies at an abandoned hut but Copper is not left to guard them--he follows the others into Saigon. The events in the Hotel Oriente (the Hotel d'Orient) follow the original except that the General is not named. Coming down the stairs, Cub does encounter a German who appears to recognise him but Chateaudun is not mentioned (there would be no point because readers of the comic won't have the context). The meeting at Ting Loo's also follows the original. Ting Loo's address is the same, but is not specifically described as an opium den. As an added detail, Ting Loo serves them a welcome meal. On the way to Charla Song's house, Gimlet does get accosted by a Japanese soldier. But here he is knocked out by Copper with his fist, and not by Trapper with a knife. The search of Charla Song's house, the finding of the piece of paper and Cub's discovery of the seedlings is much as in the original. Chang Chu comes to warn them that the Japanese are coming. The centipede incident does not take place. Instead, Gimlet sends Chang Chu to distract the Japanese troops by making a sound and then Gimlet and co. launch their attack. The Japanese troops here are knocked out and tied up after hand to hand fighting rather than being shot in a firefight. As in the original, they don the caps of the Japanese troops and steal the car. They shoot past a check point, crash through a barrier next to a line of lorries and finally position the stolen car across the road to cause a pursuing car to crash with it. They then get to the supply dump where they eat and rest. The egress is also faithful to the original, with patrol boats and aircraft hunting for them. A patrol boat spots them but is set on fire by guns from the flying boat. Biggles then executes a hasty take off to avoid a collision with it. Someone must have operated the guns, but only Biggles is shown. Algy and Ginger do not appear in the story nor are they mentioned. Characters *"Gimlet" King - for some reason here he is known as "Capitaine Kinday". In the other Aredit adaptations, he is Capitaine King. *Copper Collson - known as "Copper". *Cub Peters - known as Cub. In the other adaptations, he is "Louveteau" (French for Cub). *Trapper Troublay - known as "Trapper". In other adaptaions he is "Trappeur". *Sir Lionel Radnor - in this story he is known simply as "Sir Radnor". *Charla Song *Chang Chu *Ting Loo *Biggles - in this story he is known as "J. B. Worth". The following characters in the original do not appear *General Onastishu - there is a general but he is not named. *Monsieur Laffon - not mentioned. *Algy *Ginger Aircraft Places Visited Research Notes References to the past Incongruities Chronology References Category:Derivative works